Prime blunder: Rugby fans up in arms at botched All Blacks replay

Rugby fans were left with deja vu last night when a chunk of the All Blacks' match was replayed on free-to-air by Prime TV.

The match was scheduled to air at 8.30pm on Prime TV - but the first seven minutes were replayed in a mistake the channel has blamed on a "timecode error".

The broadcaster posted its apologies to their Facebook page

"The people that work on Prime take their jobs very seriously, and everyone is doing everything they can to ensure this doesn't happen again.

"Rest assured we will be playing the game in full, which will delay the start of our netball coverage. We do apologise for this honest mistake."

However viewers were not so accepting, telling Prime they should reduce the commercial breaks.

Amy Hanna Lame posted to Facebook about the "shocking coverage".

"We had to watch all the delay at the start and then didn't get to see them actually get the cup at the end!! Should have shortened the ridiculous ad breaks and actually shown the AB's getting the Bledisloe!"

The All Blacks won the game 35-29 against the Wallabies with a late try to retain the Bledisloe Cup at Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin.

The thrilling test was delayed by 10 minutes due to a lighting issue at the stadium, pushing the kick-off back to 7.45pm, and adding to the eventual drama-filled nature of the clash.

The outage - which took out approximately half the sports field lighting and took 17 minutes to return to full power - is believed to have been the result of a software problem. It was unrelated to a planned lights-out display which was abandoned after the outage.

Kickoff was delayed with the agreement of both teams, the referee and the match management officials, with the Wallabies wanting some extra time to prepare and warm-up before the game.

Dunedin Venues will investigate the unplanned outage and report to New Zealand Rugby as part of its event debrief and review.